Physics Commons^™

Wormholes - Gates To The Stars?, Samuel Shreeve, Jim Wheeler

Student Research Symposium

One of the most consistently fascinating results of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity is the prediction of wormholes – astronomical objects which are, among other things, capable of serving as a connection between two distant regions of space. The simplest class of wormholes are Schwarzschild wormholes – wormholes that behave as non-rotating, non-charged black holes, except that the event horizon serves as a connection to another wormhole elsewhere, instead of a point of no return.

This research presentation analyzes the attributes that make a Schwarzschild wormhole unsuitable for human travel, and examines the conditions that would have to hold …

Opal Cubesatellite Flight And Line Of Sight Integration Modeling, Kenneth Zia, Ludger Scherliess

Student Research Symposium

Understanding the lower thermosphere, the range of 90km to 140km above the surface of the Earth, is a growing interest for many areas of research within space weather. The Optical Profiling of the Atmospheric Limb (OPAL) mission is funded by NSF to gather global thermosphere temperatures. OPAL will be able to resolve the temperature profiles through observing day-time emissions of O2 A-band (~760nm) emissions. This is done by using integrated line-of-sight measurements of the A-band through a tangential view of the atmosphere down to 90km. The OPAL instrument is on a 3U CubeSatellite (30cm×10cm×10cm) and is expected to follow the …

Temperature Recognition Algorithm For The Opal Mission, Eric Ashby, Ludger Scherliess

Student Research Symposium

The Optical Profiling of the Atmospheric Limb (OPAL) mission is a CubeSat project with aims to measure the temperature in the thermosphere between 90 and 140 km. The temperatures are inferred from the characteristic emission lines of molecular oxygen called the O2 A-band (around 760 nm). These temperatures will be used to better understand the evolution of the upper atmosphere during a solar storm and to analyze the temperature signatures of gravity waves. Multiple steps are required to retrieve temperature data from the OPAL satellite. Initially, the data must be deconvoluted from line-of-sight images. Spectral data must then be converted …

Computational Methods In Modeling Fusion Plasmas, Joseph R. Jepson, Eric D. Held

Student Research Symposium

Fusion provides an attractive potential alternative to using fossil fuels for energy. Fusion requires vastly less fuel resources than does current non-renewable energy processes (virtually a 100% reduction in the required mass of fuel needed). The fuel sources needed (mainly deuterium and lithium) are also highly abundant on the Earth and fusion generates minimal waste products. One of the biggest obstacles to practical fusion energy is how to contain the reactants long enough for energy output to significantly exceed energy input. The equations governing plasma dynamics and confinement are highly nonlinear and do not admit simple analytic solutions in realistic …